Russia rejects hypocritical US call for UN meeting on Iran

Russia has reminded the United States of violent Ferguson and Occupy Crackdowns after Washington’s envoy to the UN called for a UN Security Council meeting on recent events in Iran.

Russia has said the move by the US is hypocritical, given Washington’s own history of cracking down on protests.

Some Iranian towns and cities have witnessed sporadic violence since Thursday, when peaceful protests over economic issues changed course and turned into attacks on public property, police stations and mosques. The violence drew applause from the US and Israel, which were quick to voice support for the rioters.

America’s UN envoy, Nikki Haley, said Washington would call for an “urgent” UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Iran Monday, but there’s been no word yet from the UN on such a meeting being scheduled. Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan’s envoy to the UN, who is now holding the rotating presidency of the UNSC, said Tuesday the council has not yet added Iran to its agenda and no decision has yet been taken on the issue.

Washington’s latest attempt at masquerading as a global human rights defender was met with ridicule in Moscow, which reminded the US about its own approach when dealing with protests whenever they occur on American soil. “There is no doubt that the US delegation to the UN has something to tell the world,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said on Facebook.

“Haley can, for example, share the US experience of putting down protests, tell [the Security Council] about the mass arrests and crackdown against the Occupy Wall Street movement or about the “clean-up operation” in Fergusson,” she sarcastically added.

The Occupy Wall Street protests began in the world’s financial capital, New York City, in September 2011.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, the police crackdown was swift, arresting as many as 700 protesters in one day as they marched across Brooklyn Bridge on October 1.

Fergusson, Missouri, witnessed massive protests in 2014 following the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a police officer. US authorities imposed a curfew in the area while military police repeatedly dispersed the protesters using tear gas and other means.